Food delivery platform Zomato on March 19 launched a “pure veg” delivery fleet that would deliver orders from restaurants that do not serve meat, fish or egg-based dishes. The fleet’s personnel are shown in promotional images wearing green uniforms and with green boxes on their bikes, and the company will not assign “pure veg” delivery partners to any orders from restaurants where food is not exclusively vegetarian.
While some vegetarian users welcomed the announcement on social media whole-heartedly, it immediately sparked backlash from app-based workers’ unions, activists, and academics, who have argued that the move will invariably translate into harassment of and violence against ground-level delivery partners, most of whom are from minority religious backgrounds or from oppressed caste backgrounds.
Sheikh Salauddin, National General Secretary of Indian Federation of App-Based Transport Workers (IFAT), the largest platform-based drivers’ union in India, said: “The last time someone on Zomato requested for a delivery partner of a particular religion, [Zomato CEO Deepinder] Goyal said ‘food has no religion’. Today, he seems to have gone back on this. I ask him directly, is he now going to categorise delivery partners on the lines of caste, community and religion?”
Karti P. Chidambaram, Congress MP from Sivaganga, too weighed in, calling the company “socially regressive and discriminatory”.
On announcing the decision, Mr. Goyal said that the “pure veg” fleet “doesn’t serve or alienate any religious, or political preference”, further saying that the move was planned and rolled out in response to user feedback. “If this is the case, there have been so many cases of users requesting delivery partners of a particular caste and religion, will this be agreed to as well?” asked Mr. Salauddin, adding, “There have already been multiple instances of customers requesting delivery partners of a particular religion or community.”
Mr. Chidambaram too echoed the same fears, speculating a “hidden agenda” to be behind the move.
“One of the most important aspects of caste is food pollution,” A.F. Mathew, a professor at IIM Kozhikode who lectures on contentious social issues to business students, told The Hindu.
Mr. Mathew said that as a feature that appears to be fueled by caste motivations, a “pure veg” fleet’s logical conclusion was beyond just green uniforms and lack of contact with restaurants that serve meat. “It will have to extend to whoever will deliver,” he said. “What if there is a Muslim driver bringing in a customer’s vegetarian food? … Where is this going? Will Jains deliver for Jains, and Brahmins for Brahmins?”
Later in the evening, Mr. Goyal said that Zomato would not discriminate on the basis of a “pure veg” fleet delivery partner’s own dietary preferences. He said the company would “work with” any housing societies that may disallow regular Zomato riders, and said that the intent of the fleet was to prevent the smell arising out of spilt food from a rider’s previous orders from carrying over to a subsequent vegetarian meal.
This comes months after Zomato had issued a public apology for an advertisement campaign that showed a Dalit character from the film Lagaan being “recycled” and used as inanimate objects.
This ad had also invited a notice from the National Commission of Scheduled Castes (NCSC), after which the company told the Commission that it was reviewing its entire marketing and advertising processes but also defended the “noble intention” behind the ad.
The issue of separate spaces — and now delivery modes — for vegetarian food and meat has been a contentious one that has flared up in recent years. A separate area for vegetarians at IIT Bombay last year was followed by defiance from students who believed the accommodation — and the discomfort with meat that led to it — was prejudiced. One student who protested the area by eating meat on a vegetarian table was slapped with a ₹10,000 fine by the administration.
